1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to exercise metrics recording systems, and more particularly, to exercise metrics recording systems located in health club/gym facilities that offer different pieces of exercise equipment and exercise activities to its members.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are approximately 22 thousand fitness centers and health clubs in the United States serving approximately 40 million members. The health club industry is characterized by rapid growth in club members (8% per annum) and an explosion in exercise related activities and equipment. There has also been tremendous growth in information related to the optimal use of exercise equipment including: the best use of time devoted to exercise, long term impact of specific exercise activity, avoidance of injury, and preferred combinations of exercises.
To help individual health club members maximize the benefit of time spent exercising, most health clubs offer professional training services. Professional training services support the goals of maximizing the benefit of time expended toward exercise, injury avoidance, and maintaining a long-term focus to a given exercise regime. Professional training services (as currently offered) require the trainer to directly participate in his or her clients' exercise sessions to observe and track activity and performance. Direct participation by the professional trainer in most or all of his or her clients' exercise sessions carries with it a number of negative attributes, including very high service costs, advance scheduling requirements for exercise sessions, regimentation of recreational workout activity into ‘hard core’ training sessions and, for some, a ‘loss of privacy’ in exercise activity that many health club members view negatively.
An effective exercise metrics recording system enabling individuals to independently record their exercise activity in a digital format would permit fitness professionals to effectively counsel and/or train the individual system member without necessitating the trainer's direct participation in each of the client's day to day workouts. Such an exercise metrics recording system would also eliminate advance scheduling and aesthetic problems associated with the use of professional training services. Most important, such an exercise metrics recording system would permit professional counseling services to be rendered more efficiently at prevailing price levels, and enable health clubs to provide a much broader range of fitness training/counseling services to address the needs and price constraints of the majority of health club members. Finally, the digital exercise and fitness records produced by such an exercise metrics recording system could be provided to third parties not affiliated with the health club or fitness center, such as doctors, therapists, managed healthcare providers, corporate wellness program administrators, etc., who have an interest in the health and well-being of particular health club members.
Two basic approaches have been attempted toward the goal of recording exercise activity onto a digital medium: “active network systems” and “scripted training systems.”
Active network systems deploy a local electronic network in the health club with each exercise machine equipped with a display monitor, data input means and sensors, and operating as a data collection node. The health club member identifies himself or herself to a particular machine or workout station via entry of a personal identification number on a key pad at the workout station. Upon completion of the exercise, certain performance information collected by sensors at the workout station is transmitted to a central server where individual exercise records are stored. Active network systems are effective where exercise equipment operates at a fixed location in the gym or fitness center, and where each piece of exercise equipment in the network supports only one or two exercise movements.
Active network systems encounter problems dealing with any equipment that is mobile or capable of being employed in multiplicities of exercise movements. Free weights are the most obvious example of exercise equipment that cannot be linked in an active network system. In addition to problems accommodating data input from some types of exercise equipment, active network systems do not support tracking of activity-related exercise (e.g., aerobic dancing; running; basketball; etc). Additionally, the provisioning of electrical power to active networked systems and the installation of network monitors, data input means, and sensors at each piece of the networked equipment result in high capital installation costs and high recurring maintenance costs. Active network systems are also costly to expand as new exercise machines and methods are brought into the health club.
The second means to record exercise-related activity involves the use of dedicated software programs operating on PDAs or similar handheld devices. Exercise software programs fall into two categories: “menu-driven database programs” and “scripted exercise routine systems.”
Exercise menu-driven programs involve simple database lookup programs applied to the tracking of fitness activity. Using a PDA or similar handheld device, the health club member scrolls through a preprogrammed menu of commonly available exercises, identifies his or her intended exercise activity, and enters certain performance information into the handheld device upon completion of the exercise. The principal problem with menu-driven database programs as applied to health and fitness records is the length and complexity of the menu necessary to accommodate the literally thousands of exercise options available in a typical health club. The burden of cycling through available workout options to locate the desired entry point in the database program has rendered menu-driven database programs too burdensome for most health club members and impractical as effective exercise metrics tracking systems. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,493,485; 4,409,992; 4,408,183; and 5,890,997.
Scripted exercise records systems exist in multiple forms. In their simplest embodiment, a piece of paper can be carried by a person through a workout session with an exercise program written on it. As the person follows the prescribed routine, he or she checks boxes and/or writes down performance data associated with each exercise completed. Systems have been developed to simplify the task of data entry and data conversion into a digital format by introducing a PDA or similar handheld device configured to store user exercise performance data relative to an exercise script which is carried on the PDA-like device or recorded on a workout card to be read by the PDA. There is any number of innovations relative to script-based exercise records systems, but the identification of these script-based exercise record systems as “related art” is problematic. Scripted systems simply do not meet the challenge of identifying what exercise activities a person elected to perform during a given workout session. Rather than address the multiple thousands of combinations related to exercise data sources and possible combinations of weight used, repetitions completed, elapsed time, distance, speed, resistance level, etc., scripted systems allow a user to record performance against a narrowly defined exercise program. The user performs the prescribed exercise and then records certain performance information by hand or into a PDA or similar handheld device, which contains the exercise script. The limitations placed on data input sources by script-based exercise records systems represent a fundamental difference relative to the subject invention and other “related art” described herein. Script-based exercise systems necessarily require users to strictly follow a prescribed training program in order to track performance. While most health club members follow generalized patterns in their exercise and recreation, the majority of health club members do not strictly follow training programs (the average health club member being over 30 years in age and more interested in maintaining a reasonable level of fitness and health rather than training for a marathon or engaging in “body sculpting”). Accordingly, script-based systems have enjoyed limited acceptance among health club members. Finally, while script-based systems are not precisely “related art,” a second issue is worth noting that has kept such systems from enjoying wide application in the health and fitness club market.
An exercise script for a PDA can be written by anyone for use by a health club member in any gym. While the health club operator can control perimeter facility access, the health club operator cannot control access to individual exercise apparatus or compel the use of his or her club-based training services in conjunction with the script-based system. In fact, script-based exercise records systems operate to introduce internet-based and/or non-resident trainer competition into a health club, threatening a major revenue source for the typical health club. Consequently, script-based systems have been relegated to treatment related exercise programs (healthcare provider prescribed) with very limited acceptance by internet-based trainers.
A need exists for a new exercise metrics collection system for a health club capable of collecting, transferring, storing, and managing individual exercise records of its members, without the operating restrictions and high costs described herein above. The new system will differ from existing methods, offering its members easy and flexible operation unencumbered by scripted exercise routines which are directive in nature. Such a system should accept data input from any fitness data source including activity-based workouts (e.g., aerobic dancing; running; basketball; etc.), stretching, all forms of resistance training (including exercises using free-weights), and biometric monitoring devices. In addition, such a system should be materially less expensive to install and maintain than are active network systems, and must provide for owner control of access to the system in the facility in which it is installed, particularly its exercise identification component.